Talk:International auxiliary language

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archive up to February 2006

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[edit] phonetics

may be some of the editors may not like keeping this topic on top, but i felt it relevant to do so. i just want to point out that in all these so called IALs, an important ingredient, which could have been present, is missing. and it is phonetics.

as per my view this is an important, if not most important, factor for an auxilliary invented international language. for phonetics we can look at sanskrit, an ancient language of suncontinent, no longer in practical use for 2500 years, or even hindi. which are perfectly phonetic, and must be pronounced the way they are written, irrespective of accents and diction.

and i am emphasising this fact because, may be tomorrow, we will have to command computers by voice. for which we can use an IAL, but then it must have proper phonetics.

i am looking for any criticism or support on this topic. thanx

nids 07:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "International auxiliary language" or "Universal language"?

The phrase which forms the name of this article appears contrived. The usual phrase for such a constructed or artificial language was "Universal language." Many inventors of these languages did intend these to replace existing languages.

--Anonymous

Well, the term "international auxiliary language" has certainly been used since I first learned Esperanto. A Google Groups search shows an occurrance as early as 1986 and another, in reference to Esperanto, in 1989. So, it may be "contrived", but it was contrived long before Wikipedia was started. (^_^)

I doubt anyone today (not to mention two decades ago), whether inventing their own languages or embracing existing conlangs, is still idealistic enough to believe a "universal language" will replace existing languages. That is the reason that terms like IAL & artlang have been coined.

--Malirath 21:46, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Toki Pona

"It is not designed as an international auxiliary language but is instead inspired by Taoist philosophy, among other things."

I'm going to remove it from the list unless someone has a better reason for it to be there.

-- Andrew

Yeah, if I recall correctly, Toki Pona has a complete vocabulary of 218 words, including a very basic numeral system (no, one, two, many). It doesn't take too much imagination to realize how difficult it would be to express more complex thoughts with its limited wordstock. 85.226.122.237 17:00, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

OK, the language had 118 words, but the word for hand/arm could be used to mean "five". Apparently, if one wanted to use exact numbers, one could combine the numerical words in longer phrases like for 34 "five five five five five five two two", but the language is deliberately constructed to make such things difficult. 85.226.122.237 17:47, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

It wasn't intended as an IAL by its author, but it has actually functioned as an IAL more often than many other conlangs that seem more suitable as IALs (e.g. Ceqli). The tokipona mailing list contains traffic almost entirely (except for spam) in Toki Pona, and the list members are of various native languages (French, English, German, Czech, etc). This fact might rate a mention. --Jim Henry 22:57, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I believe that it is OK to mention Toki Pona not because it is suitable as the IAL but because it represents new idea/technology that seem to be well suited for IALs -- I mean oligosynthetic and oligoisolating languages.--Towelhead 05:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


[edit] "sentential languages"?

I'm not familiar with this term from linguistics. Most of the Google hits seem to be in symbolic logic. Also, characterizing "English or Spanish" as primarily "written languages" rather than mainly spoken and secondarily written is misleading. Perhaps "spoken/written languages" would be more suitable than "sentential"? --Jim Henry 22:47, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the sentential/diagrammatic distinction is widely used. I think a fan of diagrammatic languages introduced it to the article. While diagrammatic languages deserve some coverage here, I don't think any has proved significant enough to justify reworking the taxonomy. For the short term, "conventional" languages might work as a synonym, unless someone goes all philosophical about the nuances of "conventional".--Chris 17:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mediation request

Please discuss your differences here. Ideogram 23:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Please try to avoid editing the disputed material until you reach agreement here. Ideogram 17:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Esperanto propaganda

1.The article claims that Esperanto is fundamentally different than Occidental, Interlingua and Lingua Franca Nova. In fact, all these languages are similar Euroclones.

2.The article claims that these languages are divided into two groups called "schematic planned language" and "naturalistic planned language." These terms are not used outside the Esperanto community, so they probably should not be used in a general Wikipedia article. A much more meaningful taxonomy is made by dividing these languages into a posteriori and a priori languages.

3.The fastest growing group of these languages (sometimes called philosophical languages) is not mentioned in the article. These languages (Sona, aUI, Ygyde, Kali-sise, Tunu and Socialese) have either easy to pronounce phonology, or limited morpheme set (oligosynthetic languages), or both. They are designed to be easier to learn for non-Europeans than the Euroclones.

The Esperanto propaganda was posted on Wkipedia by Jan van Steenbergen --Towelhead 05:36, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I reverted part of your edit because it was blatant nonsense. And frankly, I don't understand why you are turning this into a personal attack. My name is indeed Jan van Steenbergen, and I completely don't see why you mention my e-mail address, for example, but not my user name here. I guess you have your reasons! In any case, I don't even speak Esperanto, nor do I have any particular sentiment for it. Why on Earth would I be posting "Esperanto propaganda"?
You are completely confusing the schematic vs. naturalistic distinction with the a priori vs. a posteriori distinction, but those are two completely different - albeit related - things. A priori/a posteriori refers to the source of the vocabulary and grammar: in the case of an a priori language, it was made up entirely by the author, in the case of an posteriori language, it was based on pre-existing material (i.e. natlangs). Schematicism/naturalism on the other hand refers to how the language works, how words are derived from other words, how nouns can be distinguished from adjectives, etc.
Addressing your three points:
  1. Esperanto ís fundamentally different from LFN, Interlingua and Occidental. Sure, they all draw their vocabulary from the same source, and therefore they look pretty much alike. But the mechanisms of Esperanto are completely different from those of the other languages.
  2. It is true that the schematic/naturlistic distinction has its roots in the Esperanto movement. So what? Any idea has to originate somewhere! It is definitely nót true that its usage is restricted to Esperantists. Two examples that come to mind immediately: Langmaker.com and Slovianski. And then, I don't see the logic behind your reasoning: why should applying an idea that originates from the Esperanto movement immediately be called "Esperanto propaganda"?
  3. So thís is what all this is about, eh? I suppose it's Andrew Nowicki I'm having the honour with. I don't know for sure of course, but even though you are editing strictly anonymously, I recognise your style. In any case, this is by no means the "fastest growing group" of IALs. Euroclones are still being created on a daily base, a priori languages remain rare. Sona is an a priori language, but definitely nót schematic, and has fallen completely out of use. I don't know much about aUI. Ygyde, Kali-sise, Tunu and Socialese are all minor languages that wouldn't even warrant articles on their own. For the record, I think you should stop adding links to those languages in every possible article.
—IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu? 09:24, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Please don't revert war. Ideogram 22:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I sent you email with the request to resolve our dispute, but you have ignored it. I did not erase all existing text, but you erased all of my corrections. Apparently you prefer war to negotiation.

In my opinion differences between Esperanto and other Euroclones are too minor to be mentioned in a general article. The average person has no idea what is the difference between "schematic" and "naturalistic" languages, so if these esoteric terms are mentioned, they should be explained either in this general article or in a separate article.

You cannot speak with a taxi driver in Esperanto because the total number of fluent Esperanto speakers is on the order of a few hundred. Other artificial auxlangs have even fewer fluent speakers. All artificial auxlangs are linguistic experiments and should be treated as such. The only substantial difference between them is their design. A biological taxonomist does not ignore rare species, and he does not exaggerate differences between closely related species. A smart linguistic taxonomist does the same. This general Wikipedia article should mention the fact that not all auxlangs are Euroclones.

Probably the main reason for the steady decline of Esperanto's popularity is difficult pronunciation of some Esperanto words. I mentioned phonology in just one word, but you erased this word.--Towelhead 23:43, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. I hadn't seen your e-mail; it was sent to an address I only check every once in a while. There are a few things I want to get straight:
  • First of all, I didn't write the text in question. From 2001 onwards, there were articles under the name Schematic planned language and Naturalistic planned language; there was an AfD against them here, and the conclusion was merge and redirect. Which is all I did.
  • Yet, what was written there is true, whether you like it or not. And frankly, could you explain to me why you think this is "Esperanto propaganda"? I certainly don't share your view that the context suggest that schematic languages (including Esperanto) are "superior" and naturalistic languages are "inferior"!
  • I'll give you this one: the distinction between a priori languages and a posteriori languages is a hell of a lot more relevant than this one. There is, however, one problem: this distinction goes not only for IALs, but also for fictional languages, engeneered languages, etc.
  • Your solution is even worse. Because you think the schematic/naturalistic distinction is irrelevant, you change the description into something that is essentially describing the difference between a priori/a posteriori. You might as well say: "The United States of America is a more powerful country than Poland" and then write that "Lech Kaczyński is the president of the United States of America". I reverted your edit for the simple reason that it is not true!
  • The alternative you offer is very POV. "All artificial auxlangs are linguistic experiments and should be treated as such." Fine. I might even agree with you. But there are a lot of people who won't. In any case, this kind of argumentation is completely irrelevant in our context. Same goes for the word Euroclone, which is a derogatory term and shouldn't be used this way.
  • And by the way, I agree with you that IALs are not euroclones by definition, but you can hardly deny the fact that 99% of them are.
  • For the rest, you are confusing things even more by adding philosophical languages and oligosynthetic languages to the mix. Should I remind you that even those two babies can theoretically be a posteriori, and that at least the latter can also be naturalistic instead of schematic?
  • I'll try to work up some kind of compromise. But don't count on external links to Ygyde! As you may or may not be aware, there is a policy against external links within the running text of an article. If you really think there should be links to your homepage here in WP, then have somebody write an article about it. If it passes AfD, I'm all for referring to it in some articles like this one. In the meantime, remember this this is nót the place for auxlang advocacy!
—IJzeren Jan Uszkiełtu? 07:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
My answer to IJzeren Jan: take a look at my note below about auxlang taxonomy posted in Langmaker. I believe that this is reasonable compromise. --Towelhead 06:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Please do remember the Wikipedia policy on verifiability. It is not acceptable to insert material in an article which is merely your opinion; you must be able to cite sources in the literature that show other respected authorities share your view. Citing your own website in support does not count. Ideogram 07:46, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

User:Towelhead wrote: "....the main reason for the steady decline of Esperanto's popularity...."

Can you cite any evidence for such a "steady decline"?

"....the total number of fluent Esperanto speakers is on the order of a few hundred...."

The popularly quoted figure of 2 million speakers is arguably exaggerated (see the discussion in the Esperanto main article and its talk archives) but "on the order of a few hundred" is at least equally ridiculous as an understatement. I don't think you can make a serious case for there being fewer than 10,000 fluent speakers, and the case for 50K or more is reasonable.

"....All artificial auxlangs are linguistic experiments and should be treated as such. The only substantial difference between them is their design."

It makes sense for the article to discuss differences between IALs both in terms of their design differences, and in terms of their actual usage. In other words, the article should point out that some auxlangs have a real if small speaker community (Esperanto, Interlingua, Ido, and a handful of others), some have a tiny enthusiast group consisting of the creator and a few supporters, and the vast majority have no speakers except possibly their creator. --Jim Henry 15:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Ideogram about verifiability. Whenever someone makes outlandish claims about Esperanto (or any other auxlang), he should back up his claim with an article published in respectable, peer-reviewed scientific journal.

The decline of Esperanto membership is so drastic that Esperantists are ashamed to publish statistics except Esperanto Association of Britain: http://www.esperanto-gb.org/eab/eab_update/update27.pdf http://esperanto-gb.org/eab/eab_update/update28.pdf--Towelhead 05:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm having trouble opening the EAB links. But, yes, some national Esperanto-promoting organizations have had a recent decline in membership. ELNA, for instance, had a gradual decline in membership over several years [1] followed by a recent upswing. It doesn't necessarily follow that the nubmer of fluent speakers or regular users of Esperanto is also declining in those countries, much less in the world as as whole (some countries have definitely had an increase). "One doesn't have to pay dues to speak a language," and that's even more true now than it was some years ago. Arguably the membership of some national organizations is declining because they don't add enough value -- the marginal value of subscribing to the organization's newsletter and getting a discount on book purchases may not be worth $30 or $50/year or whatever to someone who is already getting tens or hundreds of hours of Esperanto contacts for the cost of their Internet connection. ...Still less does the rate of decline in organizational membership prove there are only "on the order of a few hundred" fluent speakers; can you critique Sikosek's estimates (generally considered pessimistic or conservative) and show they are really wildly optimistic? --Jim Henry 20:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verifiability

Towelhead writes: I agree with Ideogram about verifiability. Whenever someone makes outlandish claims about Esperanto (or any other auxlang), he should back up his claim with an article published in respectable, peer-reviewed scientific journal.

Peer-reviewed academic is the gold standard for verifiability, but it's not realistic for a field like auxiliary languages. As editors of auxlang-related articles, we should enforce the highest standards we can, but have to recognise that these will lower than standards for a physics article, say.--Chris 14:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia generally accepts Newspapers, Magazines, Books, and credible websites. Not acceptable are blogs and IRC chat channels. --Ideogram 18:45, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Naturalistic and Schematic articles

I've read over the discussion on merging these two articles, and, frankly, the proponents were poorly informed. The two terms are well established in Interlinguistics, which is an obscure but genuine academic field. If we ever get around to expanding this article (a worthwhile project, given the number of IAL articles in WP), those two articles might be worth re-establishing as spinoffs from this one. --Chris 13:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I have just found almost perfect auxlang taxonomy on Langmaker: http://www.langmaker.com/db/Esperanto:_Language,_Literature,_and_Community I would like to copy this taxonomy to Wikipedia after adding oligosynthetic and taxonomic languages. In my opinion there are two kinds of philosophical languages: taxonomic (like Ro) and oligosynthetic (like aUI, Ygyde, and Sona).--Towelhead 05:03, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

There are more than two kinds of philosophical language, as the appropriate subsections of Engineered language make clear. Some philosophical languages are neither taxonomic nor oligosynthetic, though perhaps most of them fit one of those categories (at least if you define "oligos" broadly enough to cover languages like Ithkuil and Lojban with >1000 roots, and aren't too particular about the "synthetic" part). But yes, Pierre Janton's typology as quoted in the Langmaker article is something we could use here. --Jim Henry 20:15, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I hope we are close to a consensus. Someone should propose the wording.--Towelhead 20:33, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
How about copy over the Langmaker text and revise it as you think it should be revised, and I'll propose further edits? --Jim Henry 20:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I just posted the first draft. ?? mark follows the most questionable terms. --Towelhead 05:49, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. I've just revised it further; hopefully we have some consensus now and can remove the {{accuracy}} tag? --Jim Henry 11:06, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
I believe it is good enough to remove the accuracy tag.
In "A priori languages" category I would replace the expression "(not derived from ethnic languages)" with "(not borrowed from ethnic languages)" because the word "derived" maybe confused with the word derivation which has different meaning. The same word is used in "Partly Schematic Languages" category and in "Languages with naturalistic derivation" category, but its use there does not seem ambiguous. I think that it would be good idea to turn all derivation words to links.
The term "philosophical language" was used in the middle ages to describe highly structured, a priori languages. Its modern meaning is not clear. --Towelhead 13:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Is mediation still required here or can I close the case? --Ideogram 07:52, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems that the conflict has been resolved. --Towelhead 08:24, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
Not sure what the conflict is. However it seems that it might be useful to document the historical development of the notion of IAL. There does seem to be a bias towards taxonomic and oligosynthetic languages and against diagramatic, circuit, network, pictogram and schematic languages in much of the literature. This poses the questions, what is a "language", what is a "philosopohical language", what is an "auxiliary language", and what can qualify as such? Can an arrangement of pictures be a "language"? Is art an international auxiliary? What about the language of music? What about the language of electronics? All seem to be "languages" that are used internationally as "auxiliaries" to native languages. Perhaps it would be beneficial to clarify where such langauegs sit in the taxonomic / oligosynthetic distinction? Sholto Maud 00:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hallmarks of a good auxlang

I added the following info. User DenisMoskowitz deleted it.

  1. Are the words easy to pronounce? Are there any consonant clusters?
  2. Is it easy to understand fast speech? Are the boundaries between the words obvious even if you do not know the words?
  3. Is it easy to make compound words? How long are these compound words?
  4. If you do not know a word and do not know its morphemes, can you tell if it is an adjective, a noun, or a verb? Can you tell if it is a compound word?
  5. Are there any mnemonic links between the morphemes that make it easier to memorize the morphemes? Are there any rules that minimize the burden of memorizing the morphemes?
  6. Is it possible to make arbitrarily long and arbitrarily complex sentences that have clear, unambiguous meaning?
  7. Is the auxlang culturally neutral, or does it sound like a relic of colonialism?
  8. Is it terse?

____________

This Wikipedia article pertains almost exclusively to constructed auxlangs. Learning a new language is a great effort, so it is only natural to try to find out which constructed auxlang is the best before learning it. The Wikipedia article, in its old form, gives no clue how to find the best constructed auxlangs. It gives the impression that the auxlangs are chosen the same way as religions. If you do not like my yardsticks, change them, or make your own, but do not delete the entire chapter.Quinacrine 20:36, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

This addition consists entirely of opinions about what makes a "good" auxlang. Good for what purpose? According to who? I'm sure that many auxlangers would disagree about many of these points, which is why we don't put opinions and original research into wikipedia articles. If you have a citable statement to add, such as "According to the Foobar University Auxlang Study Group's 1978 experiments (link), lack of consonant clusters ease learning of auxiliary languages" then please add it. Wikipedia's function is not to tell people how to find the "best" constructed auxlangs, and it's not the place to put anyone's personal yardsticks, yours or mine. DenisMoskowitz 21:15, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recent editing

I have tried to "revitalize" this article as best as I can, including some references (always difficult with the restrictions on using internet sources - odd for an internet encyclopedia, no?). Please note that edits under "68..." are mine as well (I simply forget to log in!). I hope you find my edits satisfactory. Cgboeree (talk) 16:51, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the tag because I am confident that the issues have been addressed. Cgboeree (talk) 20:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)